


in your nightmares, in your dreams (trust the difference)

by scarebeast



Series: your shrinking soul [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, PTSD, Post-Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarebeast/pseuds/scarebeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't feel alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in your nightmares, in your dreams (trust the difference)

Dean can feel Sam's eyes drilling holes into the side of his skull. He draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them loosely, drops his head forward. He can still feel Sam's gaze.

"Please tell me," Sam repeats, in that desperate, pleading tone he gets when he thinks Dean is being stubborn about emotional bullshit. 

"Please. I need to know what happened. Cas just drops you here and leaves without saying a word? And you're... Jesus Christ, Dean, you're all fucked up, your chest..."

Dean closes his eyes and he stays silent. He can feel the frustration rolling off of Sam in waves and he ignores it, swallowing through the burn in his throat.

Sam waits.

"I don't know what it was," Dean says finally and he doesn't even sound like himself. His voice is thick with pain and hoarse with screams. "It's nothing we've ever seen before." But it knew exactly who Dean was, knew exactly who to take the form of, knew exactly what to do.

"Do you think we could find out?" Sam asks. Dean already knows what he's thinking, that they can track this thing down, track it and kill it, and Dean can't do that. He can't see it again. He just can't.

"No," he manages. "No, it's not gonna let itself be found."

Sam stays silent for one blessed moment. "What did it do?"

Dean hunches forward, presses his forehead to his knees and the cuts and tears on his chest scream their displeasure.

The bed sinks under Sam's weight and there are cool hands brushing through his hair, cool, careful hands.

Dean leans into Sam's touch, lets him take care of him. Just this once. Dean thinks he'll vibrate apart if he doesn't let Sam do this, let him keep him on the ground.

"It was... it looked like Cas. It looked like Cas and it was..." The words were caught in his throat, but when he looked up, Sam's expression was loaded with understanding. Sam would never understand this, just like Sam would never understand Hell.

"And you... you thought it was really him, didn't you?"

Dean sucks in a sharp breath and nods, once.

Sam doesn't say anything after that, just pulls Dean in tight against his chest and everything is wrong.  
~~~

The first time it happens, Dean's waiting in the Impala for Sam at a dusty little gas station just outside of Tulsa. There's a split second when Dean thinks he sees a man in a black trenchcoat, just a second, passing the Impala, and then the figure is gone in a flash of red.  
Sam comes out of the restroom to find Dean pale, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckled hands. "Dean?"  
Dean swallows hard and nods. Sam slides into the passenger seat and watches Dean carefully for a moment before touching his brother's shoulder gently. Dean nods again and starts the engine.

~~~

It happens again. They're sitting in a diner in some podunk town Dean didn't even bother to look at the name of. Sam says something about working a job in Idaho and Dean says something about potatoes. There's a spark of red and a dark coat and Dean can't breathe. 

Sam's still talking and Dean's lungs have stopped working and he's staring into the space over Sam's shoulder.

"Dean?" Accompanies a touch to his hand, and Dean snaps back, looks at his brother, horrified.

"I'm okay," he manages, and goes back to eating his pancakes.

~~~

Dean starts drinking again. It's not like he ever stopped, really, but Hell does sort of put a damper and that sort of thing. The next three times they end up at a bar, Sam has to sling Dean's arm over his shoulder and drag him out and lay him out over the backseat of the Impala.

"You can't keep doing this, Dean," Sam says in the morning, keeps saying, even when Dean is stone cold sober on a hunt.  
Sam isn't talking about the drinking.

~~~

He wakes up in a cold sweat, a scream ripping from his chest. Sam's there in an instant, touching his face carefully and Dean drags the blanket off of himself, pushing away from Sam and up. He's not sure how he gets to the bathroom.

Sam's right behind him, hand on his back as he dry heaves into the toilet.

"Dean," Sam says softly, carding his fingers through his brother's hair. "I'm calling Cas." 

"No." Dean leans back against the wall. "Don't you dare."

"You can't avoid each other forever," Sam snaps, getting to his feet and leaving the bathroom.

Dean sits for a long time, knees drawn up to his chest. When he finally gets up, his legs are unsteady and his eyes are stinging. The mirror shows him a stranger.

Sam is waiting in the bedroom and there's no sign of Castiel. Dean climbs back into bed without a word to his brother.

~~~

It takes one hunt for everything to get worse. It gets so much worse.

Dean is breathing through viscous copper and clutching at Sam's arm as his brother presses his jacket to the wound in his side.

"Stay with me, Dean, come on!" Sam's eyes are bright and Dean wonders if this is what it was like when he died the first time. If Sam had been trying to push the blood back into him and if his eyes were this bright, shiny with unshed tears.

Dean tries to speak, chokes on the fluid bubbling up in his throat.

"Cas!" Sam shouts and Dean almost wants to groan. "Oh, god, Cas, please!"

Tan flows in the wind and Castiel is dropping down at his side and pressing his fingers into the wound. Dean cries out and his eyes slide shut and everything is dark, burning, and that fucking song is whispering through his head again.

There's a flow of something warm and pure into his side and he gasps, chokes, until the pain is gone completely and he can open his eyes.

"Dean." Castiel, brushing his thumb over Dean's jaw. "Dean, you're alright."

Dean doesn't feel alright.


End file.
